


happenstance

by jellijeans



Category: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Mid-Canon, Sad Ending, matthew-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22747537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellijeans/pseuds/jellijeans
Summary: It eats away at him, it really does, that he can’t provide her with a safer life, something so different than she’s ever known. If it were up to him, she would never hunger or want for anything at all ever again, and they could leave this life behind them, never again fear for their lives or each other’s.But it isn’t. It’s never been up to him, and Matthew has to accept that. He must. There is always a risk to what they do. They’ve known this since the beginning.
Relationships: Leila/Matthew (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	happenstance

Matthew can’t remember exactly how he got into the spy business, but he still has both of his parents, so he thinks that’s a win.

It’s more than he suspects can be said for the new recruit, who was practically dragged in by Uther, kicking and screaming. She is fuming in front of him, shaggy red hair hanging over one eye as she spits at one of the guards, holding her back by the arms. He’s not unfamiliar with this sight; a lot of their spies come in like this, caught in the middle of a heist, unarmed and angry.

What Matthew notices about her first is the mole below her lip—it’s charming, he thinks—and then how hungry she looks. She is skin and bones beneath her cloak, defenseless without her dagger, and she is afraid.

A second glance at her shows the dirt on her cape, the mud smeared along the side of her leg, bruised from what Matthew assumes was a nasty fall during her escape. Probably how she got caught. He nods towards the guards, who let her go but keep a wary eye on her, hands poised on their weapons.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she spits. He can see her fingers working around the hilt of an imaginary dagger and then the way they pulse with frustration as they inevitably don’t find one.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. He raises his hands up, away from the dagger that sits on his hip that he’s _really_ regretting having with him right now, and watches as Leila relaxes, just a little bit.

“Why should I trust you?”

A thief’s intuition, right off the bat. Matthew is as familiar with this as anything else. Lying won’t get past her.

“To be honest, you probably shouldn’t.” He scratches the back of his head. “You have no reason to, and I acknowledge that.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” she comments. Her voice is curt, but Matthew is starting to see the person behind all the barriers she has up. Something in him tells him it would be worth it to get past those, even if he has to pry them down himself, one wall at a time.

“I try to be.” He extends a hand. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

She hesitates, but then reaches out, and her hand is warm against his.

-

That had been years ago, when they had first met. She had quickly risen through their ranks, becoming easily the best thief in their forces, and Matthew had fallen in love with her, step by step and day by day. She rests in his arms now, her head against his chest, the same hair he had once dreamt of running his hands through splayed out on top of him.

“Are you sure you have to go?”

“I have to.” Her breath is pleasantly warm against his skin, and a bitter reminder that she won’t be here tomorrow. “Lord Uther trusts me with this. I refuse to let him down.”

“Please be careful,” he says, lifting his arms and draping them over her. She’s so warm against him, her presence so comforting, and the worst thing he can imagine is losing that forever.

He wants her by his side. He wants her with him for the rest of his life. He can imagine no more peaceful an end than getting to spend every day, every night like this, and he can imagine no one who deserves it more than Leila. The mere thought gets his heart racing.

Leila must notice, because she looks up and smiles at him, and he feels his face go blood red.

“I love you, Matthew,” she says softly.

“I love you, too.” He inhales. “Please don’t get hurt.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“...I know.” And it eats away at him, it really does, that he can’t provide her with a safer life, something so different than she’s ever known. If it were up to him, she would never hunger or want for anything at all ever again, and they could leave this life behind them, never again fear for their lives or each other’s.

But it isn’t. It’s never been up to him, and Matthew has to accept that. He must. There is always a risk to what they do. They’ve known this since the beginning.

Leila pushes herself up, leans over him until her lips brush against his, and then laughs against him—her breath is sweet against his tongue, her mouth hungry as it meets his. That’s something that’s never changed. Hungry for food, for life, for _him_.

He shifts one of his hands until it tangles itself in the hair on the back of her head, drawing her closer to him and further from everything he fears and knows is out there as his lips edge at the corner of her mouth, and then her collarbone, and then lower in a desperate attempt to memorize everything about her in case he doesn’t see her again.

-

The night in Caelin is a tender one, soft and full of unspoken promises, and yet overcast with dread.

Matthew only wishes he had a ring for her, had been able to say he wanted to marry her in a more direct way than “come to my hometown someday, meet my parents,” but then, he’s never been good with words. The more important thing is that Leila understood. It’s not a “now,” but it’s a “when,” and for them, that’s enough.

Hector’s done them a favor and had everyone else leave them alone for a while, if only because he knows that this may be the last time they see each other, like every time is; besides, it is too soon for a counterattack, and Matthew has no problem missing out on the celebration if it means an extra night he gets to spend with Leila.

He can almost hear Kent and Sain’s drunken laughter from where he is, but neither of them pay it any mind, gentle with each other, determined to take their time.

He wants to do this forever. He can imagine doing this forever. He can imagine a ring on Leila’s finger, and he can imagine a future with her, brighter than one either of them have ever had the chance to know. He can imagine introducing her to his parents, knowing they’ll love her. He can imagine marriage and children and everything they’ve ever wanted. It’s right there, just beyond his fingertips, just beyond this mission. It’s so close he can taste it on her lips, so close he can feel it in the way she smiles against him.

He just wants this moment to last forever. It’s all he could ask for.

-

Matthew wants to die.

He’s never been hurting this badly in his entire life. He’s always been the happy-go-lucky one, the one with the quick wit and even quicker smile.

He has never been the one to turn his back on a fight, never been the one to carry his lover’s body, never been the one to feel its warmth draining and have to prevent himself from throwing up as he finds a spot to bury her. He’s certain there are Black Fang scum crawling everywhere on this island, but he doesn’t care—he must bury Leila, and if they catch him, so what?

Is there any point in going on without her?

His heart is aching. When they had arrived, seen that familiar flash of red hair through the woods, for a moment he had thought she was alive, that he could take her and run away from the battlefield, from this life and all of it—

—and instead it claimed her, and she will be buried on the Dread Isle, far from home and even farther from him, six feet below him in an epicenter of calamity.

He can’t go on like this. Not without her, not with an entire war left to fight knowing she will never be waiting for him at the end of it. Not when he was supposed to marry her.

He was supposed to ask her to leave with him. They were supposed to be happy. He was supposed to be able to see her smile and hold her and kiss her and feel her warmth against him whenever he felt like it, and now she is cold and limp in his arms and will never smile ever again.

She is thin. She is almost as thin as he remembers her being the first time they met; he wonders if she was hungry, if the Black Fang started starving her as soon as they suspected her intentions. He wants to know who did this to her.

He cannot bear to look at the wound on her neck, scarlet and fresh against the pallor of her skin. He had kissed that spot, once. Left his own mark there where the Angel of Blade’s death kissed it afterwards. There had been blood thrumming beneath her skin and a pulse he knew as well as his own. She had been alive in his arms, and now she is not.

What were her last moments like, he wonders? Was she in pain, or was it quick? Did she call for him?

Did she hope he would come, only to be failed by him, an echo of time after time before?

He had promised her so much, and he guaranteed none of it.

When she died, she didn’t even have a ring on her finger.

There are tears splashing down his face now, blurring his vision as he sprints through the woods. He’s just thankful that the murkiness of the forest muffles his sobs. Leila would be ashamed if she heard him blubbering like this.

The first open clearing he finds is where he buries her. There are flowers growing around the edges of it, although they are warped and misshapen from Nergal’s magic. This entire island is cursed, a burden upon Elibe, but it’s not exactly like there’s anywhere else he can bury her. Leila deserves a resting place where she can remain unbothered.

(It stings when he thinks that he will likely not be able to ever visit her, and even if he could, there is no gravestone to mark where she lies—after he leaves this spot, she will be gone to history, and that will be the end of the story.

Of _their_ story.

Matthew’s throat aches with another choking sob.)

Matthew loves—even in death, still loves, loves _actively_ —every part of Leila, but the worst part about her is she is beautiful, even when her throat is slit and there is no color to her face. She is beautiful even when she is no longer alive. She is beautiful in a way that makes him know he will never forget her, for better or worse. She is beautiful and he cannot ignore it because he lacks even a casket to bury her in.

He wishes he had the young master’s strength. He wishes he had Lyn’s determination, or Eliwood’s endurance. He wishes he was anyone aside from a thief-turned-spy burying the love of his life, knowing she was his soul’s pair and that he will never find anyone like her ever again. At best, someone will ease the pain, but no one can replace Leila.

No one can _be_ Leila, and that is what hurts the most.

He knows, if he survives this, there will be days when he walks the streets of Ostia that he swears he sees her, and then he will turn his head and it will be just another face in the crowd. There will be days where he swears he hears her laughter, and then it will be gone as soon as it came. There will be days where he questions if she was ever really meant to be his at all, or if it was always going to be like this. There will be days and nights and forever longs that he will hate himself for not taking her and leaving all of this when they still had time. There will be eternities he knows he could have spent with her but now cannot. There will never be another Leila.

No, there will never be another Leila, but there will always be another battle, another war, another Nergal. Another mission Leila did not accomplish that now falls to him.

And it suddenly seems that just as quickly as she had laid beside him, horribly beautiful in her stillness, she is gone, his heart empty in her wake. She left his life just as turbulently as she had entered it, and the only thing he can hope to chase after is the tracks she left behind.

And then she is gone, beneath the earth, forever out of his reach, in a grave he will never be able to find again after the grass grows over it and the Dread Isle becomes a horrific memory.

He plucks several of the mutated flowers and lays them over her makeshift grave. It seems as if they wilt when he sets them down. He tries to pay it little mind.

He will avenge her. He will find this so-called Angel of Death and kill him, kill him the same way he killed Leila, avenge her and the future they were supposed to share.

But before then, before he even returns to the young master’s side and rejoins the brawl, he places himself in front of her grave and weeps for everything that could have been.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading !!!!! leila's death is such a moment in the game for matthew and it gets me every single time ,,,, sorry matthew :^(
> 
> if you'd like to yell with/at me, you can find me on twitter at @jellijeans !!


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